Kindergarten Cupids
by aehawthorne
Summary: It's a new school year at Hester Elementary, and the students in Mr. Queen and Miss Smoak's kindergarten classes have decided that their teachers belong together. They are determined to enact a real life fairy tale, and nothing, not even boring "grown up" logic, is going to stop them.
1. Chapter 1

Felicity was sitting at her desk, chewing absentmindedly on her favorite red pen while she reviewed her lesson plan for the day, when someone cleared their throat behind her and a man's voice asked "Felicity Smoak?" She turned, pulling the pen from her mouth, to see a _very_ attractive man with short-cropped sandy brown hair, dressed in a dark grey sweater that made his already brilliant blue eyes seem to glow, standing in her classroom doorway.

"Hi," he said with an easy smile that sent Felicity's pulse racing. "I'm Oliver Queen."

"Of course," Felicity replied, managing to recover her wits. "I know who you are. You're the new guy."

"Well, I've actually been teaching for almost three years now," Oliver said with a small shake of his head.

"Right, but you're new to me," Felicity said, gesturing nervously with both hands as she spoke. "I mean, you're new to this school. Which means you could…"- She started tapping her pen against her desk- "... come to my classroom and listen to me babble. Which will end, in three, two, one." She jabbed at the air with her pen to punctuate the countdown, then took a deep breath to compose herself and looked up at Oliver as a silent indicator that she was ready for him to tell her what it was he needed.

"I just dropped by to introduce myself," Oliver said, surprising Felicity by how quickly and easily he picked up on her silent signal. They'd only just met, after all.

"Really," she said, finding herself skeptical that that was the _only_ reason he'd stopped by.

"Yeah," Oliver replied.

"Is that the only reason?" Felicity asked.

"It is," Oliver confirmed. "We're going to be working across the hall from each other, so I figured I should." Felicity studied him with narrowed eyes, but if he _had_ some other reason for visiting her classroom, he was doing a pretty good job of keeping it to himself.

"Although," Oliver said after a few minutes of silence, "I've actually never taught kindergarten before, so if there's any help or advice you can give me as the year progresses, I would really appreciate it."

"Mhmm," Felicity agreed, she hoped in a way that indicated that she would be glad to, but not right now since she was busy with her preparations for the first day of the new school year, nodding. Oliver seemed to get the message, because when she glanced away for a minute, she heard the sound of her classroom door closing, and when she looked back, he was gone.

Felicity shook her head in bewilderment as she returned to her work, outlining her plan for the day, stunned once again by how easily Oliver had picked up on the message she had sent without actually speaking. It seemed they had an instant connection, and it promised to make things very interesting from here on out. With all of that in mind, Felicity realized that she couldn't wait to see what the new school year would bring.


	2. Chapter 2

As the beginning of the school day drew nearer, Oliver found himself with his mind on his neighbor across the hall. Something about her was captivating, and he couldn't deny that they'd had an instant connection. There was no doubt in his mind that, with her as a coworker, the course of the school year would prove to be very interesting.

Soon, it was the time the students would start arriving. New could be scary, especially for kids starting school for the very first time, and so it was school policy for teachers to be waiting outside their classrooms to greet their students- and whatever parents might be escorting them- as they arrived. Oliver stepped out into the hallway, closing his classroom door behind him, and immediately spotted Felicity doing the same across the hall. He flashed her a smile in greeting, one she returned, but they didn't have any time to talk because at that moment, kids began filling the halls, and it was time for the school day to start.

Oliver barely remembered to open his classroom door before he was lost in a whirlwind of voice and faces, names and greetings. It was a good thing that there were icebreaker activities in his lesson plan for the day, because he wasn't sure if he would have been able to remember all the names he'd just learned if he'd only had the few seconds he got with his students as they came in the door to try and commit those names to memory. Purely for her own sake, he hoped Felicity was better at this part of the job than him.

"Mr. Queen!" a familiar voice called out, distracting him from his thoughts of Felicity. A moment later, he spotted a familiar curly-headed shape come bolting down the hallway toward him, and then Sara Diggle was throwing her arms around his legs in greeting.

"Sara!" he exclaimed, smiling down at her. "I didn't expect to see _you_ here!" Sara giggled. Further up the hall, Oliver spotted her parents, John and Lyla, coming toward them. They must have been in the process of escorting their daughter to her classroom when she'd spotted him and run ahead of them. Oliver smiled. He'd become friends with John and Lyla over the course of time he'd spent teaching Sara in his previous job at a preschool, and it was a pleasant surprise to see them now.

"Fancy seeing you here," he said when they reached his classroom door, exchanging quick hugs with each of them in turn by way of a greeting.

"Sara was so excited to start kindergarten until she realized that it meant that you wouldn't be her teacher anymore," John said. "It was hard seeing her so sad."

"But then we found out that her new school was the one you were going to be teaching at," Lyla put in. "And we decided to let her find out when she got here. We wanted to keep it a surprise."

"Well, I'm sure Sara is very glad you did," Oliver replied, glancing down at her. She nodded enthusiastically, grinning.

"And JJ's starting school this year, right?" he asked, returning his attention to Sara's parents, who nodded.

"Today is his first day of preschool," Lyla elaborated.

"And speaking of which, we should probably be getting him to it," John cut in. Lyla nodded, and crouched down to put herself at Sara's eye level.

"Bye Sara," she said. "You be good for Mr. Queen, okay?" Sara nodded.

"Bye Mommy," she said, giving each of her parents a hug in turn. "Bye Daddy."

"Bye sweetie," Lyla and John chorused in unison, and then they were off.

"Ready for your first day?" Oliver asked, turning to Sara once more.

"Yeah!" Sara exclaimed excitedly, and scampered along ahead of him through his classroom door. He took one last look up and down the hall for any stragglers, and, finding none, followed after Sara into his classroom and closed the door behind him.

"So, how was your first day at the new job?" Thea asked when Oliver came home to the apartment they shared later that day.

"Pretty good," Oliver replied. Thea's work- running a nightclub called Verdant out in the Glades- made it so that she was coming home from her job when he was leaving for his, and that when his work day was ended, hers hadn't yet started. As a consequence, late afternoon and evening time was when they saw the most of each other. "How about yours?"

"Not bad," Thea said. With a smile, she added, "I got to watch Sara slam some dude's head down on the bar when he tried to get handsy with her."

"Did you have him thrown out?" Oliver asked, knowing that his sister had a policy of zero tolerance for anyone who attempted to interfere with the safety and security of her employees while they were working.

"I didn't have to," Thea replied with a shrug. "He ran out of there like someone had lit a fire under his ass." They both laughed at that. Remembering himself, Oliver set his stuff down on the shelf next to the door, slipped his shoes off, and padded into the kitchen to make himself some coffee, which he needed after spending six hours with a bunch of kids with considerably more energy than him. On his way, he gestured between Thea and the counter where the coffeemaker was, and she nodded. Silent communication of that nature was common between them, borne out of years of a relationship that was much closer than most people would expect siblings who were ten years apart to have.

"Tell me more about your day," Thea said when Oliver returned to the living room with the coffee. "I want to know everything."

"There's really not much to tell," Oliver replied with a noncommittal shrug, taking a seat on the couch beside her. "I mean, kindergarten is a bit of an adjustment from preschool, I admit, but teaching is what I've been doing for the last three years. It's familiar."

"Mmhmm," Thea said thoughtfully, taking a sip of her coffee. "And there was _nothing_ interesting about your day. _Nothing_ that stood out from your usual experience." She sounded skeptical.

"Well," Oliver conceded after a moment, "Sara Diggle is in my class again this year, as it turns out." Thea perked up at that. She adored baby Sara.

"And my new coworker is… interesting," Oliver went on.

"Interesting how?" Thea asked.

"We just seemed to have an instant connection," Oliver replied. "I can't really explain it."

"Well, I bet it'll make your work days very interesting from here on out, won't it?" Thea theorized.

"You know what?" Oliver said. "You're right. I'm sure it will."


	3. Chapter 3

Felicity was in the middle of a math lesson when she was interrupted by a knock at her classroom door. She glanced over and saw Oliver waving at her through the window set into it. Puzzled, she crossed the room to the door and yanked it open.

"Oliver, I'm in the middle of a math lesson," she said in a low voice that wouldn't carry, mindful of disrupting the other classes that were going on.

"That's fortunate," Oliver replied. "Because that's what I came to talk about."

"My math lesson?" Felicity asked, frowning. He wasn't making any sense.

"No, not yours," Oliver said with just the slightest of smiles. "Mine." It was then that Felicity noticed the green five subject notebook he was carrying, presumably what he had his lesson plan written down in.

"I hope you're not leaving your students unsupervised to come and talk to me," she said. Oliver shook his head.

"I'm not," he said. "They're in music class. But math is supposed to be next, so I really don't have a lot of time…" He trailed, leaving the rest of his sentence unspoken, as if hoping that Felicity would get the hint. Fortunately for him, she did.

"Come on then," she said, opening the door wide to admit him entry. "Let's get to it."

"So what's up?" she asked once they'd reached her desk in the corner across from the door. She kept an eye on her class while she talked, but so far, aside from being a little fidgety, they seemed fine.

"I don't know how to teach this," Oliver said, sounding sheepish, pointing to the spot in his lesson plan where he had noted when his math lesson.

"What do you mean?" Felicity asked. "You don't know how to teach math?"

"No, I mean I don't know how to teach it to kids this age," Oliver explained, shaking his head. "I understand the basic principle of how, but in practice…" He trailed off, seeming to lose the thread of the conversation for a moment, before he picked it back up again and continued, "With preschool, you teach kids the basics, you know, what the numbers _are_, and I'm not sure exactly how to present the concept of manipulating them mathematically, even on a basic level. Especially not in way that they'll understand. I'm completely lost." Felicity mulled that over for a while, chewing thoughtfully on her bottom lip. The whole time she'd been teaching, she had never had to consider or thought to consider such a question before.

"Okay," she said at last, alighting on an answer, "let me ask you this- do you have any younger siblings?"

"One," Oliver replied, though there was a crease between his eyebrows that suggested that he was confused as to the relevance of this particular line of question. "A sister. Thea."

"Okay," Felicity said. "And did you ever help Thea with her homework when she was this age?" She gestured toward her students to indicate the age she meant. There was a long pause while Oliver apparently dredged up the answer from the depths of his memory, then he nodded.

"Okay then, pretend that that's what your doing when you teach your class," Felicity advised. "Think about how you helped your sister understand concepts that were new to her or concepts she was struggling with when she was this age, and present your lesson to your students the same way." There was a pause while Oliver considered the suggestion.

"Thank you," he said. "That's very helpful."

"You're welcome," Felicity replied, offering him a smile. Checking his watch, Oliver said, "I should go."

"Yeah," Felicity replied teasingly. "You should." Without another word, Oliver gathered up his materials and headed for the door.

"Good luck!" Felicity called after him, and as her math lesson resumed, she couldn't help but wonder how his would go. She hoped it would end up going well, but she really couldn't sure how effective her advice would turn out to be once it was put into practice.

Later on, when the school day and Felicity's work day had come to an end, she had gathered up her belongings and was heading for the door when suddenly Oliver's voice said, "Hey" in her ear. She shrieked in surprise and all but leaped sideways.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," Oliver said with an awkward laugh.

"I'd have to seriously question what kind of person you are if you'd _meant_ to," Felicity replied. She noticed that Oliver was walking in pace with her now as she continued on toward the door.

"So what's up?" it occurred to her to ask.

"I was wondering if you'd let me buy you a coffee," Oliver replied, without preamble or further explanation. By this time, they were out the double doors at the front entrance of the school, and Felicity stopped short as they swung shut behind them.

"Are you… are you asking me out?" she stammered, stunned. It wasn't that she was _opposed_ to the idea of going on a date with Oliver, but it seemed rather sudden, if he _was_ asking, to be asking her now, seeing as they'd only just met the day before and the conversations they'd had today were the most interaction they'd had since then.

"No, no," Oliver said hastily, as he seemed to realize that he'd made her uncomfortable. "This would be as a… a thank you. Your advice was really helpful, and I wanted to show my appreciation somehow."

"And you figured the best way to do that would be with coffee?" Felicity asked, finding herself thrown for a loop.

"Well, I mean, you keep a coffeemaker on your desk," Oliver replied, smiling in a way that was more an awkward grimace than an actual smile. "So I just assumed…" He trailed off, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

"Sure," Felicity said after a moment, responding at last to the original question. "That sounds great. Thank you."

"No, thank you," Oliver said. "Again. I really can't even begin to tell you how much your advice helped me."

"Though not for lack of trying," Felicity pointed out with a smile.

"True," Oliver replied with a smile of his own. "And here I am, still trying." With that said, they made the arrangements for where and when they would meet for their coffee and went their separate ways until then, and Felicity found herself wondering what, if anything, else was going to come out of their meeting.


	4. Chapter 4

"You'll never guess what happened yesterday," Ethan, one of Felicity's students, said excitedly at recess the day after Oliver's visit to her classroom, standing inside the dome of the jungle gym, craning his neck to see Sara, who was busy climbing up the outside of it with single-minded focus.

"What?" she asked, hooking her knees around the bar she'd just been standing on and swinging down into the open space beneath the outside of the dome with no apparent fear, dangling upside in empty space as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Mr. Queen came by our classroom," Ethan replied. "While you guys were in music class."

"Really?" Sara asked. She climbed back on top of the jungle gym for a moment, then dropped down to the ground beneath it, directly in front of Ethan, who looked delighted to have piqued her interest. Perhaps as a consequence of having two Army veterans for parents, Sara had a bold, nearly fearless personality that drew other kids to her like a magnet, and consequently everyone in her grade wanted to be her friend. "What for?" Ethan shrugged.

"I didn't really pay attention," he said. "Something about math?"

"Hmmm," Sara mumbled thoughtfully. In the back of her mind, she started plotting, the loose outlines of a plan beginning to take shape. She knew that Mr. Queen and her parents were friends by virtue of how often he was over at their house, and she also knew, from snatches she'd caught of adult conversations that she hadn't been meant to hear, that he'd expressed feelings of loneliness on more than one occasion. She wondered what she parents would think if she found some way to help with that. What they would say. She bet they'd be really pleased with her. Probably pretty impressed too.

With all of the goings on, however, the fun and excitement of all the things a little girl with a fearless attitude and an active imagination could find to do during the recess period, Sara soon got distracted. The pieces of her plan fell apart before they'd had a chance to coalesce into something solid, slipping out of her awareness in the process. By the time recess was over, she had forgotten all about it.

By the end of the school day, the only thing that remained in Sara's thoughts that had anything to do with her fledgling of a plan was the vague notion that all was not right with her parents' friend.

"Is Mr. Queen okay?" that notion prompted her to ask her parents during dinner that night. They exchanged a meaningful look before either one of them spoke.

"Why do you ask, sweetie?" Sara's mother wanted to know. "Did something happen at school?" Sara shook her head.

"Nope," she said. "But sometimes, when he's here, he seems sad. I know people aren't okay when they're sad." At this, her parents exchanged another look, but whatever meaning or understanding passed between them with it was lost on Sara. This time, it was her father who spoke up first.

"He's fine," he said, his tone calm, measured, reassuring. "It's just that being an adult is hard sometimes, and it can get you down, that's all. You'll understand that one day." Sara nodded in understanding, smiling brightly at each of her parents in turn to let them know that they had succeeded in dispelling her concerns. There were a lot of things in this world, she was starting to learn, that she was too young to understand. She was more than will accept this as one of them.


	5. Chapter 5

When Felicity had suggested a local bookstore and coffeeshop that she liked to frequent as their meeting place, she had been more than a little surprised at how readily Oliver had agreed to it- without offering any alternate suggestions of his own. Perhaps he hadn't had any, not that it really mattered now, because here they were.

Pulling into a parking space, Felicity switched off her car engine and took a moment to compose herself before exiting her vehicle and entering the store. She spotted Oliver in the cafe area almost immediately, seated at one of the tables with a steaming mug of coffee in front of him, reading a battered and obviously well-loved copy of _The Odyssey_.

"How many times have you read that, exactly?" she asked by way of greeting, taking a seat across from him. He glanced up at the sound of her voice, his mouth twisting into a wry, almost sheepish grin.

"I don't know," he said. "I lost count after about a half dozen." He paused, then added, "It was the only book I read in college that wasn't a requirement for one of my classes." That, Felicity thought she understood. She'd chosen to get her degree in early childhood education and a degree in computer science- another passion of hers- at the same time, which meant that her workload had been so large that she hadn't had time for much else besides schoolwork and studying the entire time she'd been in college. She didn't think she'd ever not be grateful for the fact that her grades had been good enough to get her a full scholarship, which had saved her from bringing the added stress of a job to her already busy life at the time.

"So," Oliver said, distracting her reminiscent thoughts. "Shall we?" Felicity nodded and followed him as he got up and went to the counter. Felicity ordered her usual- a nonfat latte with extra sugar- and tried to ignore the guilt she felt when Oliver paid for it. That had been implicit in the offer he had made, but she still felt bad letting him do it.

"Where you planning on sticking around for a while?" Oliver asked, distracting Felicity from her thoughts for the second time since she'd gotten here.

"Hmmm?" she asked, the words not quite computing in her brain. Oliver repeated the question, then added, "Just so I know whether to have them make this in a mug or a travel cup." He gestured toward the barista behind the counter, who was waiting patiently for Felicity's answer, tapping the pen in their hand against the pad where they had taken down her order.

"Sure, I guess I can hang around," Felicity said. "I don't have anywhere I need to be." Oliver smiled, seeming pleased by her answer, and the barista nodded once before stowing away their pad and pen in their apron pocket and moving off to make Felicity's drink. They waited in patient, companionable silence at the end of the counter until it was ready, then returned to their table.

"Thank you," Felicity said when they were seated at it once more.

"For what?" Oliver asked with a puzzled frown, his eyebrows creasing together. Felicity gestured to her coffee in answer.

"You don't need to thank me," Oliver said, shaking his head. "I wanted to do it."

"Yeah, but I still felt bad letting you," Felicity replied, feeling her mouth twist into an awkward grimace. "So I figured if I thanked you for it, maybe I wouldn't."

"I suppose that makes sense," Oliver muttered. The pair lapsed into silence after that, silence that Felicity had to fight against her natural instinct to fill with chatter. Somehow she hadn't expected them to run out of things to say to each other.

"If you want to read or get caught up on work or something, feel free," Oliver said after several long minutes of silence and Felicity fidgeting uncomfortably in her chair. "It won't bother me."

"Alright, if you say so," Felicity replied, breathing a sigh of relief at having been offered a solution for alleviating the awkwardness- real or imagined- of the current situation. She leaned over and opened her bag, rifling through it for a few minutes before realizing that she'd forgotten the book she was currently reading at home.

_Oh well_, she thought. _I _am _in a bookstore_. With that, she got up from the table and grabbed her coffee, sipping it leisurely while she perused the shelves in the science fiction section. After a while, she found a cyberpunk novel that looked intriguing and returned to the table with it. Oliver glanced up from his book at her approach, but said nothing. She was a good few pages into her book before he did speak.

"So," he said, a cautious tone in his voice. "What are your thoughts on making this a regular thing?"

"What do you mean?" Felicity asked in reply, setting her book down on the table. "Like meeting here for coffee every week?" Oliver nodded.

"I figure this won't be the last time I'll need to ask you for help," he said, "since this is all a bit more of an adjustment than I had been expecting it to be. This way, I can address my concerns outside of the school day, so I won't have to keep disrupting your class."

"Well, I didn't consider it that much of a disruption this last time," Felicity replied. "But I see your point." Even as she said it, she hoped that doing this outside of school hours wouldn't mean that they would no longer see as much of each other during them. As new as her work friendship with Oliver still was, she didn't want to lose it.

"Meaning?" Oliver asked, derailing Felicity's rapidly more depressing train of thought and making her realize that her response hadn't exactly been a clear answer.

"Meaning yes, let's make this a regular thing," she said. Oliver visibly brightened.

"Great," he said in a deceptively noncommital tone. "I look forward to it."

"As do I," Felicity said, and she hoped that Oliver wouldn't find out that she was mostly just looking forward to the opportunity it would present for them to get to know each other outside of the context of work. If she was about to lose her work friendship with him, she was determined to make sure that it would be replaced with a real friendship.


	6. Chapter 6

"So," Thea asked. "How was your date?"

"It wasn't a date, Speedy," Oliver replied, casting an exasperated look in her direction.

"Sure," Thea said. "You met up and got coffee with her, and you paid for hers, but it wasn't a date."

"It wasn't," Oliver insisted. "She helped me out, so I offered a coffee as a thank you. Felicity and I are just…" He trailed off, searching for the right word. He'd wanted to say "friends", but he wasn't even sure that they were that yet, since they'd only just met at the beginning of the week. Finally, he settled on, "coworkers."

"Mhmm," Thea mumbled skeptically. "Do you want to be something more than that?"

"I want us to be friends," Oliver answered honestly. "Eventually. But that's all, I swear."

"And you don't want to rush things as far as your friendship is concerned," Thea said. It wasn't a question.

"Exactly," Oliver agreed. "Good friendships take time. There's no need to push it. We have the whole school year to get to know each other and build a friendship, after all."

"Mhmm," Thea mumbled again, this time in agreement.

"I'm sorry if I was pushy about you dating," she said after a long silence. "I just want you to be happy, Ollie, and you keep talking about being lonely-"

"Which I'm working on," Oliver interjected. "I mean, I'm on the dating apps."

"The sign of true desperation," Thea quipped.

"Hey, we can't all get lucky and run into the love of our life by accident the way you did," Oliver pointed out.

"Fair point," Thea conceded. "What I'm trying to say is that I want you to be happy, and I want you to find someone who makes you happy."

"You make me happy," Oliver countered.

"You know perfectly well that that's not the kind of happy I meant," Thea said exasperatedly, glaring at him.

"Yeah, I know," Oliver conceded, but not without first flashing his sister a teasing smile. He knew that she really did just want what was best for him, just as he wanted what was best for her, but that didn't mean they couldn't joke around with each other about it in the process.

"Good," Thea said, sounding satisfied, the glare vanishing from her face. Silence fell between them as their conversation ran its course. A short while later, Thea left for work, and the silence got deeper, becoming oppresive. Oliver sat on the couch, deep in thought, losing track of time until his growling stomach finally roused him.

With a sigh, he levered himself off of the couch and padded into the kitchen to make dinner, making a mental note to make enough to make enough for two so that there'd be some for Thea when she got home from work. When the sounds produced by his rummaging around in the fridge to determine what ingredients they had on hand faded away, the silence came rushing back. Oliver sighed again, a heavy sigh that he felt in his whole body. He thought about putting on some music, but he knew that it wouldn't help. This was the sort of silence that came with a lived in space becoming absent of one of its inhabitants, and wouldn't be allieviated by any excess sound he produced on his own.

By the time Oliver finished with dinner, he had fallen into a deep depression that he was sure nothing but Thea's eventual return home would alleviate. Then, his phone lit up with a text, and the sight of who it was from snapped him immediately out of his funk.

_Thanks again for the coffee_, the text from Felicity read.

_No problem_, Oliver replied. _It was the least I could do._

_Can't wait to do it again next week,_ Felicity wrote, the message accompanied by an old style smiley face emoticon- a colon and a closed parenthesis. The sight of it made Oliver smile.

_It'll be my treat next time, though_, a second text from Felicity read. _I insist. It's the least I can do._

_I don't know that that's true_, Oliver replied, _but I concede your point._

_Good_, Felicity said. In his mind's eye, Oliver could see her nodding to herself in a satisfied manner, and the thought made him smile just as much as her old fashioned emoticon had.

_Listen, I've got to go_, Felicity wrote after a few minutes of silence. _I've got a Netflix binge that I've had scheduled way back, and right now it's calling my name. I'll see you on Monday._

_See you Monday,_ Oliver replied, and that was that. He went to bed that night in an altogether better mood, and he was still smiling when Thea came home from work the next morning.

"Well, you certainly look happier than you did when I left last night," she remarked when she saw him. "Anything happen?"

"No, not really," Oliver replied. He found himself not wanting to tell her that the improvement in his mood was because he'd been texting with Felicity. He didn't think he'd like the direction she'd run with that information. "I was just-" He lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug- "in a mood, I guess."

"Well, I'm glad it's over now," Thea replied. "I like you much better like this." Oliver nodded in acknowledgement of the truth of her words. He imagined that he was a lot easier to deal with when he wasn't caught in middle of a loneliness induced low mood.

"On that, we can agree," he said. In the back of his mind, he made a mental note to, when he saw her on Monday, thank Felicity for her help Knowingly or not, she had helped him out his funk, had chased away his- albeit temporary- depression, and she deserved to know how grateful he was for that. It had only been a week, and already she was changing his life for the better in ways that he never could and never would have expected.


	7. Chapter 7

Sunday morning dawned bright and golden, accompanied by the muffled rumble of traffic outside that was the closest equivalent to birdsong that one could ever manage to get in a big city. Felicity stretched in the bar of sunlight slanting across her bed through a gap in her curtains, then got up and went to the window to open them the rest of the way, flooding her bedroom in brilliant morning light. She found herself smiling as she blinked spots from her vision. Sundays were her favorite day of the week. She'd usually finished up with her grading as well as the rest of her work the day before, which meant on Sunday, the whole day was hers, to do with what she wished. And right now, what she wished was to park herself on her couch in her pajamas and binge watch Netflix.

To that end, Felicity took a few moments to make her bed, straightening out her covers and making sure that everything was smoothed out and neat, before padding out into her kitchen to make herself breakfast. She ate it perched on the edge of her kitchen counter, since she'd somehow never gotten around to getting anything in the way of dining chairs, then sat herself down on her couch with coffee and a blanket and started her Netflix binge for the day, the very same one that she'd told Oliver she'd had scheduled way back the night before. She'd mostly meant that as a joke, but the fact of the matter remained that she was usually so busy during the week that she pretty much did have to schedule her leisure time on the weekends.

Midway through the afternoon, right as Felicity had reached the point where she'd zoned out to everything except the TV in front of her, her phone started vibrating against the coffee table nearby, startling her back into full awareness. She glanced at the screen and saw that it was her mother calling, and for a moment she considered not answering. Only a moment, though- she'd become estranged from her mother when she'd gone off to college, due to seemingly insurmountable differences in their worldviews, and they'd only recently started to reconnect with one another. Felicity knew that if she didn't answer her phone right now, she ran the risk of ruining all the hard work she'd put into repairing their relationship.

"Hi Mom," she said, lifting her phone to her ear, a sigh slipping out with her words before she could stop it.

"Hi," her mother replied on the other end of the call, and Felicity heard her start to add a "honey" to the greeting before stopping herself. "I'm not interrupting anything important, am I?"

"No, Mom," Felicity reassured her. "I finished my work yesterday. What's up?"

"I just wanted to check in," her mother replied. "See how you're doing. See if there's anything new with you."

"I'm doing fine," Felicity said. She thought for a moment, then added, "And we have a new kindergarten teacher joining the staff this year."

"Oh!" her mother replied, brightening. "That makes them your coworker, right? What are they like? Are they nice?"

"He's pretty nice," Felicity said, smiling at her mother's enthusiasm. "And his kids seem to love him. He bought me coffee yesterday."

"Oh, he did, did he?" her mother asked, obviously hinting at something, given her tone.

"Don't get any ideas, Mom," Felicity replied, laughing. As much as her mother's obsession with her love life had always annoyed her, it was still strangely pleasant to hear it now. It was comforting to find them slipping back into the familiar patterns of their relationship. "We're just friends. The coffee was meant as a thank you, that's all."

"What do you mean?" her mother asked.

"Well, you see, his previous job was teaching preschool," Felicity explained, "and on Friday, he was struggling with how to present a particular subject to his class. I helped him figure it out, and he thanked me with coffee."

"Very observant of him, to have noticed your caffiene addiction," her mother remarked teasingly.

"I keep a coffee maker on my desk at work, Mom," Felicity replied. "I'm not exactly trying to keep it secret."

"Fair enough," her mother replied with a laugh.

"Anyway, we decided to make it a regular thing," Felicity went on after a moment. "Meeting for coffee, I mean. Oliver thought that it would be a good way for him to get more help if he needs without having to disrupt my class again."

"That's his name?" her mother asked. "Oliver?"

"Yeah," Felicity replied. "Why?"

"No reason," her mother said. "It's just that we somehow almost got all the way through this entire conversation without you mentioning it."

"Oh," Felicity said as she thought back and realized that her mother was right. "Oops."

"Oh well," her mother said. "I'm sure it would have come up eventually even if you hadn't mentioned it."

"Probably," Felicity agreed. There was a moment's silence, then her mother said, "Well, I'm going to let you go now, but it was nice catching up with you. I'm glad to hear that things in your life are going well."

"It was nice talking to you," Felicity said, and realized as the words left her mouth that she meant them. "Here's hoping we get to do it again soon."

"Here's hoping," her mother agreed, her words punctuated by a faint _click_ as the call disconnected. Felicity sighed and set her phone back down on the coffee table and threw herself back down on the couch and resumed her Netflix binge. This time around, though, her focus was elsewhere, somewhere other than on what she was watching. The only thing occupying her thoughts was how happy she was that she had gone against her first instinct to not answer the phone when her mother had called. If she hadn't, she would have missed out, not only on an admittedly rather pleasant conversation, but also on a rare opportunity to continue rebuilding the relationship between them.


	8. Chapter 8

"Hey, hey!" Oliver called out, jogging to catch up with Felicity as they entered the school building on Monday morning. She turned her head to look at him as he approached, her shoulder length blonde hair, which she'd left loose that day, fanning out around her face as she did so. Oliver faltered, struck by how beautiful she had looked in that single brief moment. Remembering himself, he asked "How was your weekend?"

"It was good," Felicity said with a reminiscent smile. "I got all of my work done by the end of the day on Saturday, so on Sunday I did nothing all day but sit on my couch in my pajammas and watch Netflix."

"You mentioned when we talked on Saturday night that you had a Netflix binge scheduled way back," Oliver remarked.

"I was mostly joking," Felicity replied, "but the fact of the matter is I'm usually so busy during the week that I practically do have to schedule any leisure time." Oliver laughed at that, then realized, too late, that Felicity may not have meant it as a joke. When he glanced over at her, though, the suggestions of a smile were still playing with the corners of her mouth, indicating that while she may not have necessarily meant it as a joke, she wasn't upset or offended that he'd thought it was one.

"But anyway," Felicity went on after a moment, "the best part of my weekend was when my mom called."

"You actually _enjoy_ talking to your mother?" Oliver asked, feeling his features folding into an expression of distaste. He saw Felicity glance at him out of the corner of her eye, looking concerned.

"You don't enjoy talking to yours?" she asked.

"Well, to be fair, we don't actually talk all that much," Oliver replied. "Just on the occasional holiday when she decides that I'm due for a call from her, and even those are few and far between, but... no. I don't enjoy talking to her. When they _do_ happen, our conversations tend to be very unpleasant."

"Can I ask why?" Felicity asked. Her voice was soft, and the concerned expression hadn't left her face. By this time, they had reached her classroom door, and Oliver realized that this was not the time or place for this conversation.

"This really isn't the right time for me to get into it," he said. "But later, though. I promise."

"When?" Felicity asked.

"This afternoon, after school is out," Oliver answered. "At the bookstore."

"Alright," Felicity said with a nod, and with that, they parted ways for the day. The depressing turn that their conversation had taken because of him remained on Oliver's mind as he took his seat at his desk, but his work, and then, not long after, the chorus of "Good morning, Mr. Queen" that accompanied his students filing one by one into the classroom soon distracted him.

Later that day, as promised, he met Felicity at the bookstore. She'd gotten there before him and had claimed a set of armchairs in the corner of the cafe, and was absorbed in the cyberpunk novel she'd picked up the last time they'd met each other here when he approached.

"I guess it was your turn to make sure we had seats saved, huh?" he asked by way of greeting. Felicity glanced up from her book at the sound of his voice, and immediately set it aside when she saw him.

"I guess so," she said with a shrug and a smile as he took a seat in the chair next to hers, angling himself so he was facing her.

"So, you said you would tell me why your conversations with your mother are always unpleasant," she said the moment he was settled in. Felicity, Oliver was beginning to learn, was not one to beat around the bush when it came to satisfying her curiosity. He sighed, wondering where to begin.

"I don't like to tell people this," he said after a moment, "because it makes them look at me differently, _see_ me differently, but... I come from money. My family is very well off. My father is owner and CEO of a company, Queen Consolidated, that he inherited from my grandfather. And from the moment she thought I was old enough to understand such things, my mother made it clear that, as her oldest child, there were certain expectations of me- that I would go to business school, take a position at QC, and eventually take over it from my father when that day came around. But then I decided that I wanted to be a teacher, and my mother was so infuriated by my failure to live my life the way _she_ wanted me to that she cut me out of her life then and there. And now, when the rare occasions when she does deign to call me, it's only ever to lecture me about my 'poor choices'" He made air quotes with his fingers as he spoke those last words, well aware of the anger and bitterness, years of it, in the gesture.

"I'm so sorry," Felicity murmured, the concerned expression from earlier that day returning to her face.

"I wish I could say that that was the end of it," Oliver went on, on a roll now, words flowing from him in a tide he hadn't the strength nor will to try and hold back. "But it wasn't. When I failed to live up to my mother's expectations, she transferred them onto Thea, and for a while it was fine. She went to business school and got her degree like my mother had wanted _me_ to, but when she decided that she wanted to use it to start her own business instead of taking a place at the family one, my mother, well… she wasn't happy about it, so she did the same thing to Thea that she'd done to me. And that's why Thea and I live together now- because I promised her that she'd always have a home with me, and she didn't want to live somewhere she didn't feel welcome." His monologue finished, Oliver blew out a heavy sigh and slumped back in his chair. It felt strangely good to have gotten all of that out in the open, like some great weight had been lifted off of his shoulders.

"Have you tried… reconciling with your mother?" Felicity asked after a moment. "Explaining to her that you and your sister are adults who make your own choices, and since there's nothing _wrong_ with the choices you made, cutting you out of her life for them was a shameful thing to do?"

"What would be the point?" Oliver asked bitterly. "She wouldn't listen."

"Maybe you should try anyway," Felicity mumbled, and that was the thought that she left him with for the rest of the day.


End file.
